Tag Archives: Writing

Today is a new day, one that everyone who is honest would gladly admit that they are proud to experience. On any given day, I would likely write to you about my beloved home of Fort Smith, Arkansas.

I might talk to you about reaching out and connecting to your friends, family and potential clients via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and WordPress. I might even talk to you about marketing and adversiting solutions for your business and the various ways that you can utilize social media to save yourself and your business time and money.

All of these forms of technology and ways of connecting on the grid are relevant to our way of life. But let’s suppose for a moment that you were to become disconnected from the grid or the grid were to go down for any one of a million reasons. Then what?

My last article on this site was Social Media: Now What? and included a picture of an old computer. It’s no secret that ever day people across the globe are struggling to provide a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, are fighting against horrible diseases, and for their safety. War has become a part of everyday life, so much so that Generation X hardly blinks an eye lash at its ever-present danger!

So you ask “why has the theme of my written gift to you changed?” How did we get from Social Media: Now What? to The Grid’s Great: Where’s Your Radio? Ask me. I would be happy to explain.

Today, October 3, 2012 I awoke earlier than normal and found the air crisp and after loading the coffee pot quickly got dressed to ward off the chill. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t cold in my house, but it wasn’t warm either.

After getting my first cup of coffee in one of Grandma’s coffee cups I sat down at my desk and realized that the roses I had cut and placed there were faded. This brought a smile to my face.

Often (probably too often) I share pictures from my gardens. It seems that I now have over a dozen varieties of roses and hundreds of pounds of canna lilies. I didn’t plan this assortment of flowers, these are just those that have survived the many cycles of life.

Sometimes the summers are “too hot” or “too long” or the winters are “too cold” or “come too early” or “come too late.” My roses and lilies have fared the best. They are the resounding survivors.

With all the current unrest over the “government shutdown,” the recent overwhelming changes in my professional career, and the overwhelming losses of loved ones in my family over the last several months I have had to consciously take pause and find comfort in these basic things.

Okay I know; I am gushing! But I have been waiting for weeks, for the newest version of Trust Agents and The Impact Equation and they arrived together just in time for my birthday. Happy Happy Happy Birthday to Ms. Annie Sells!

I owe about 100 thank you’s to all the friends and family that reached out to make me feel loved and appreciated on the celebration of my birth. I owe the biggest thank you, to Chris and Z who made it clear that they love me without measure and wanted me to know it on my special day. But I owe a big thank you to these authors for rekindling a spark in me!

I have spent time “on-line” forever and was one of the first people I know to do AOL, to get a Yahoo account, I was on MyLife way before it was MyLife and I still slink around MeetMe which of course used to be My Yearbook. I remember when chat rooms were thought to never take on. Of course I have seen many more come and go. I miss Threadsy. 😦

I have advocated for online learning for over a decade and every degree and certification that trails my name was earned online. I respect and love higher education, but firmly believe that if colleges and universities don’t come a lot further very quickly, toward embracing distance and online learning that future generations will suffer.

However, I did not need to tell you any of this, because it is all out here on the world wide web for your viewing pleasure. Do a search for “Ms. Annie Sells” and you will find a lot, but do another search for “Ms. Annie Sells, social media” or “Ms. Annie Sells, Fort Smith” and you would be entertained for a while

I have tripped my way through a lot of trial and error just like Trust Agents and Thought Leaders. We are the guinea pigs that are testing everything and putting ourselves on the line, so that we can learn for ourselves and teach as many of our friends and colleagues who are willing and interested in learning. Trust me, if you take this route you will not need a resume’ or CV either.

A respected colleague posted a full analysis of their Facebook activity to their news feed and I could not resist checking it out. I was redirected to Zeebly and accessed Social Me. After more than five years in online marketing and social media advancement this was new to me. Okay … I have been busy. So sue me.

The next step was to allow them access to my Facebook page. They said I use Facebook a ton. Big surprise there.

According to their analysis 83% of my posts come from Facebook (of course with the assistance of many apps) and 7% come from Android. (This is about to change folks, as I just ordered my first tablet computer today). Rumor has it that the average person posts from Facebook 58% of the time. I talk the most about Social Media, Community, and Business and am ambitious and spontaneous. They examined my statuses, looked in depth at my speech, my likes, my post times, my friends, and much more to figure out my online personality.

Of my 1,200 plus posts they are usually about education, general questions, culture, love, excitement, my day, humor and happiness. The personality traits that they attribute to me are extroverted, confident, compassionate, spontaneous, traditional, spiritual, ambitious and optimistic. They say that I have published more words than the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which has a total of 36,363 words. Too bad they only looked at Facebook, if they ran the same analysis of all my social media channels, then I am sure that I have published what amounts to many books.

My most popular status thus far is:

“To every single one of you who are on my friends list – – I enjoy catching up, looking at pics, hearing about you and your family, sharing jokes and news, along with getting and sometimes giving…”

Ironically this sums up my philosophy. We all have an online presence. Whether we are aware of it and manage it is our choice – this goes for individuals, organizations and businesses alike. This motivated lady took it upon herself to brand herself and to learn how to teach others to do the same. This assessment of one of my platforms shows that my efforts have not been in vain.

Have you ever written an article, a review, a story or a blog and realized later that you didn’t do all that you could to show it in it’s best light or didn’t share it with the right audience?

PowerPonit Presentations are (more) often (than not) recycled, reused and (time waste) is reduce(d). If in our middle school, high school, college and office jobs we don’t think twice about reusing content, then why is reusing content online, in our marketing and even our networking so uncommon?

I do believe there is nothing new under the sun. But marketing and branding are about recycling and reusing the same old things from under the sun in a new way, with a different ray of light upon them to convey a different meaning or to get a different point across.

I challenge you to take out your old files, your old stories, you old content, you old blog posts, your anything and re-tool it!

October 7, 2010 Annie Sells went to Hollywood Stars Pizza for lunch to discuss TeamRVBN and it’s next monthly meeting and to visit the handsome and kind owner James Hood.

Now if you follow my work, then you know one of the articles that I wrote for Examiner.com was about an unfortunate incident at Hollywood Stars Pizza, where James locked his keys to everything away and was unable to get into his restaurant or car. He gave me the full scope and agreed to offer a discount to anyone that came in and called him an idiot!

James has people coming in calling him an idiot. See writing is an honorable way to help your friends. Never-the-less he treated me to a one hour viewing of Iron Man 2 and free all I could eat pizza and salad bar. Now that is service!

Check out his website. I really like the Chicken Alfredo pizza and one-of-a-kind chocolate pizza for desert.

Responded in much appreciation and gratitude to those who have responded to my product.

Cannot stop thinking now, cause I’m on a roll.

Writing again, but this time putting all my cards on the table.

While reading, which we all know is a pre-requisite for writing I came across Chris Brogan‘s blog post entitled “100 Blog Topics I Hope You Write.” While on one of many flights he came up with a list of only 100 topics that he wishes bloggers / writers / journalists would blog about.

Why would a successful CEO, social media guru, public speaker and blogger want you to write about his topics? According to Chris, “If we’re going to show people how to use social media to drive meaningful conversations instead of being yet another marketing tool, we have to run out and educate at a break-neck pace, so we can bring more and more thought leaders into alignment with these big and not-so-big organizations who could use our help.”

I believe in writing, communication, connecting and what better way to do that than to contribute to the education of thought leaders?

Chris thank you so much for your suggestion and rest assured that your hope will see fruition, at least to a small degree in Fort Smith, AR.